"Bowes, Richard - From The Files Of The Time Rangers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bowes Richard)

Jax smiles. "Understand this, Robert. Most people don't get to decide who their contact is. But nobody gets to decide whether or not the cops trust them. What are you offering?"

"Olney and Gonzalez's killer. And maybe a lot more. If you give me two weeks."

"Two days," Jax says. "Time's tight. As you pointed out."

Robert says, "Four. Monday morning." He's staring over the other man's head. When Jax looks, everybody in the place is watching the TV. On screen is a live shot of the West Side Yard. The sound gets turned up. "… two blocks from the site of the infamous Switchyard Massacre." When Jax turns back, there's a ten on the table and Robert is gone.


3.
Half an hour later, Louis Jackson stands under the huge glass dome at the center of the old Main Post Office. A big chunk of the interior of this massive building has been refurbished and turned into an approximation of a 1900s railroad cathedral. The Post Office itself was built to complement the original Penn Station. Now, it will contain within itself Penn Station Three.

Above the new train gates hang huge blow-up photos of the first Station at its opening in 1909. Pearly light falls on the Waiting Room where people are dark specks, ticket windows mouse holes. The glass and steel of the old Concourse ceiling is like a web. The Arcade's shops glitter.

Without taking his eyes off the photos, Jackson tells Lieutenant Crawford, "He claims you're cramping his style."

"His style!" Crawford says. "Unusual parlay, consultant and suspect. He was hanging around this neighborhood weeks before the Olney murder took place. Any idea where he was last night?"

Jax nods, still looking up. "At a family dinner in Westchester. I know because I was there. Anything new on Gonzalez?"

"Indications that she didn't die on the site where she was found. No sign of how she got there. Just like Olney. Unlike him, though, it seems she was stripped and blinded after she was shot.

"One other thing. This is a copy of a snapshot we found in her locker at the Police Academy." Jax sees five males, three in their late teens, two a bit older, facing the camera. Clothes and hair place this in the early '60s. Behind them are twisted steel beams, the smashed statue of an eagle.

"The original's authentic as far as we can tell. The two adults are officers LaRocca and Burke. We don't have any ID on the kids."

Jax sees a snotty preppy, an amused young tough, and a jumpy-looking kid in a dorky crewcut who seems oddly familiar. Jax looks again. Only because he has spent the better part of the last twenty-four hours with Robert Logue does he recognize the face. He hands the photo back and says nothing.

PART TWO
THE SONG OF THE TROLL

One Friday afternoon in mid-December, a merchant seaman in pea coat and watchcap walked up Seventh Avenue to Penn Station. He carried a duffel bag over his shoulder. Up the wide stairs and past the huge pillars he went. A Federal Police guardhouse lay just inside the front door.

Not even the glorious Commander-in-Chief in the twentieth year of his Perpetual Administration could totally dampen the holidays. Police lounged at their station in silver and black uniforms, faces red, eyes glazed. As the sailor walked past them, a plumber's truck drove up fast. A man and his assistant unloaded tools and pipes.

The station was built in the gilded age before the Great War and the World Depression. Under a vaulted ceiling, the Arcade, big as a city street, lined with shops and restaurants, led from the Avenue to the Main Waiting Room. As the sailor passed, the proprietor of a cigar store hung up a CLOSED sign and hurried in back.

A flight of wide stairs flanked by monumental statues brought the seaman into a room vast as a city square. People seemed tiny beneath huge banners bearing the likeness of the Commander-in-Chief. High school kids heading to a rally passed through the gates of the Concourse. T. R. was among them. The sailor put down his bag behind two Federal cops, fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes and matches.

A short, sharp boom echoed through the building. Then another and a third. Pipe bombs had blown up the guardhouse at Seventh Avenue and sealed that entrance. The two Feds started toward the Arcade. A Thompson submachine gun appeared out of the sailor's duffel bag. He shouted, "Everyone, get down." The cops turned around and immediately put their hands in the air. Shots rang out in the Concourse. Commuters revealed themselves as gunmen. Baggage handlers broke rifles out of broom closets.

The sailor's hat was off. "Secure the exits. All non-combatants out of the building." Captain Deveraux's red hair was like a beacon. He raised his weapon and fired a series of short bursts through the face of the Commander-in-Chief. T. R. ran up to tell him, "We've captured all the guards on the train platform."

"Lock them in the baggage area."

A banner was raised. On it was the spiral emblem of the Time Rangers, a circle and within that another circle and within that still another. It always seemed to have one more twist than was possible. It drew the eye irresistibly.

Friday night saw half a dozen badly coordinated attacks on the building. Saturday morning, helicopters appeared, flying low, firing through the Waiting Room windows. One was shot down over Seventh Avenue. Another crashed through the skylights and burned in the Concourse. Saturday afternoon, a homemade land mine took out a tank in the Thirty-Third Street carport. Sunday morning, warships opened fire from the Hudson River. Columns buckled on the Eighth Avenue faзade. A two-ton eagle, blasted off the roof, fell into the street.

Deveraux crouched in the machine gun position commanding the main entrance. T. R. brought up the last of the ammunition. Suddenly, the artillery fire stopped and they heard helicopter motors, felt tank treads grinding toward the building.